Well, I did the Division Level International Contest, and it was, well ...fun! It was in a fairly large room, with seating for perhaps 70, and possibly 50 in attendance. Suggestions for the set up? Well, they had the audience too close to the performer, one step back and you were against the wall; one step forward and you’d breach an audience member’s personal space in a highly inappropriate manner. A touch I’d never seen before was a hand mike and stand provided for any who cared to use it. The Contest Chair seemed disappointed that no one wished to make use of this speaker’s implement! But, as several of the other speakers pointed out, they had no experience with one; as this speaker pointed out, I had no advance notice that it would be provided for our use; I’d have loved to have use it, but that would mean having to rethink all my gestures and voice dynamics on the fly! That would hardly be satisfactory, to speaker or audience, in a contest performance.
There were only 6 contestants, but, they were all quite good. I got the number 5 speaking slot. There were eleven judges, and I didn’t pay attention to who they might have been. Most of the speeches were of a motivational nature, with a couple being motivational testaments to the wonders of Toastmasters; mine was, as I’ve mentioned before, purely inspirational. I’m afraid that I didn’t pay too much attention to the first four speakers, as I was trying to stay centered on my own material.
I’m pleased that my material went pretty much the way I expected it to, and, despite unexpected circumstance, I managed to get through it without any screw ups, in a manner that I was satisfied with. The unexpected circumstance was that I got a muscle spasm in my lower back right at the beginning; I thought for a moment that I might not be able to complete my seven minutes. It only lasted for perhaps thirty seconds, and, while my voice broke up a little, and I would have been very interested in seeing how my face reacted to the pain, I managed to carry on ...very relieved when it dissipated!
I’d titled my piece, “First Place”, and, as expected, I got to walk on stage to laughter and applause, when it seemed that the Contest Chair was not just announcing me, but announcing me winner! More laughter when I thanked him for his kind words, but cautioned that he was, “A little premature perhaps, but, ...I couldn’t argue with him!” My, ‘Who flung Dung’, routine seemed to go over well, with the audience responding well as I tossed imaginary Buffalo Shit about the stage. Good reaction too, as I described how we cure drug use in the work place by having those, “boys”, piss in a Dixie cup! “Earthy audience?” you might ask. I’d say yes, but not nearly so earthy as their speaker, who believes that that is just the way human existence is bracketed, and who tipped his hat to St. Augustine, who is famous for his quote, “Inter faeces et urinam nascimur.”
My ‘hero’ bit went just as I’d intended; people laughed when I described him as an old man who put in drainage tile on my parent’s farm. Describing him as a ‘scared child of ten, weeping at the beginning of the great depression’, took them much further south, and intimating that he had chemical dependence issues, took them all the way to the land of cotton! Then, letting them know that bill was a paraplegic who adapted to a self-supporting life-style during the depression when there were really no support systems in effect, and continued that life-style till his late sixties, took them all the way! My point being, while I agree with Augustine, there are a lot of hero’s and miracles, “inter faeces et urinam.”
The highlight of my day was the interview after the contest; I’d filled out a sheet for the Contest Chair, prior to the contest beginning, with a wide variety of material he could draw upon for his questions, and I’d prepared sets of material for whatever he might chose! He asked me a simple question, “You mention that you like travel, James, could you tell us something about that?
“Mr. Contest Chair; ...Your question leaves me feeling like
That Mosquito that got blown into a nudist colony!
...Where do I begin!?!”
From there I continued for two or three minutes with constant waves of laughter from the audience! After the contest one of the other contestants cornered me and asked, “You’re a Stand-Up comic. Where do you work? Yuk-Yuks? I answered, I am. Strictly amateur, and I work anywhere. All told, not a bad day, but, as it turned out, my First Place was actually Third Place. Oh well! It’s not the first time I’ve misnamed a presentation ...I’m bad with misnoumers!
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